Five on Friday

For about 20 years the same baubles decorated my Christmas tree. I'd bought a super-cheap pack from Woolworths when I was a student and couldn't really justify any fancier ones. Once I started work I was too busy having a social life to worry about improving the bauble-quality. Fast-forward a decade and a bit, Little People came along, and even having a Christmas tree up at all was a risky business, never mind any decent decorations. There was an incident one year where one of the Little Peeps un-decorated the tree, and took every single thing off it and put in in a heap on the floor. Amazingly the tree itself has never come a cropper (yet). Anyway, as well as the Woolies' baubles, the tree has become fuller and fuller with little masterpieces from nursery, pre-school and primary school. These are of huge sentimental value to me, and evoke so many memories, but I couldn't possibly only pick five to show you.

However, over the last couple of years I've acquired, either by making, being given or simply purchasing, some new ones :)  Oooooh! The extravagance! Hurrah! So without further ado, here are my Five Favourite (non children-y) Christmas Decorations .....

1. A few years ago my Aunt gave me, for Christmas, a really lovely set of metal decorations. They're gorgeous to look at but tricky to hang on the tree as they're a bit too heavy, and the branches just bend so the decorations slide off. This snowman stands up very well on his own, doesn't he look smart :)

2.  On the mantelpiece stands my little miniature gingerbread house snow globe. I think this is actually Little Miss', and was given to her by Grandma, but I've commandeered it for our decorations box, I really adore it, it's so tiny and cute, just over an inch wide, but so detailed.

3. My Mum gave me this reindeer, no idea why really as it wasn't part of a Christmas gift or anything, and I think he's meant to go on the tree, but I rather like him standing up, again he's on the mantelpiece. I love his sparkly antlers :)

4. I bought this little wooden tree-shaped hanging decoration last year. Just a supermarket purchase, but I love all the little bells in it, nothing like a good jingley-bell for Christmas.

5. And I've saved the best til last. I bought this little wooden Christmas tree in Moscow about 10 years ago. We'd gone with Little Man when he was only 9 months old, to stay with friends who moved there for a couple of years. In between visiting St. Basil's, Red Square, The Kremlin and Gorky Park, our friends took us shopping, and of course everywhere were Matryoshka dolls to buy as souvenirs, and amongst them I spotted this little Christmas tree. It was February (therefore slightly strange - I thought - for it to have been on display at the market) so I had to wait for ages before I could display it :)

It's quite cute on its own but look ....... just like it's Russian doll counterpart .... it's got little nesting snowman and Santa figures! So sweet!

Our tree is always up early, and I refuse to take it down until twelfth night. I often think that it seems such a shame to have the decorations up for such a short period of time,  but perhaps that's what makes them so special :)

I'm joining in with Five on Friday, thankyou to Amy for organising :) You can visit the other bloggers taking part by clicking the links below.

Amy from Love Made My Home

CJ from Above The River

Nicole from My Garden Diaries

Beth from The Whimsical Dowager

Alison from Life At Sylvan House